Bachelor of Science (BS), Ohio University, 2024, Communication Sciences and Disorders

Past research suggests that exposure shapes careers in speech-language pathology and related healthcare fields including occupational therapy and nursing. With the growing demand for professionals in speech-language pathology (SLP) and the lack of understanding in stakeholder perspectives, there needs to be more research surrounding the impact of experiences in SLP on career choices. This study investigates the influence of current and previous experiences of university students in SLP on their career choices. Participants completed an online questionnaire to assess their experience with SLP and the extent to which this experience influenced their career paths. Among 160 respondents, 44% reported receiving SLP services themselves. Fifteen of these participants who had received services completed a follow-up semi-structured interview. The interviews revealed several themes regarding the perspectives of the services received and the impact of SLP experiences on their career choices. Themes were developed surrounding the influences of confidence, comfortable learning environment, family support, and peer judgements. In terms of career decision, individuals' motivation to reciprocate, their career qualities being shaped, and career perspectives varied throughout interviewees. These findings are discussed in the context within the ecological perspective and the existing evidence base. Implications for practice and future research directions are also explored.

Committee: Joann P. Benigno (Advisor) Subjects: Speech Therapy

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2024, Engineering and Applied Science: Biomedical Engineering

Ultrasound imaging provides tongue shape information useful for remediating speech sound disorders, which affect 5% of children and cause long-term deficits in social health and employment in adulthood. However, ultrasound imaging can be difficult to interpret for clinicians and individuals, limiting the understanding of articulatory data and ultrasound biofeedback therapy speech outcomes. This dissertation includes three studies that use different approaches to address and investigate guidelines for improving interpretation of tongue articulation in ultrasound images during speech production. One difficulty is that tongue shapes can be challenging to compare due to their complexity and the fast pace of articulatory movements during speech. To approach this problem, tongue movement was represented as displacement trajectories of tongue parts, and support-vector machine classification models were trained to identify patterns that differentiate accurate versus misarticulated productions of the word “are.” A linear combination of tongue dorsum and blade movement was shown to achieve a classification accuracy of 85%. The resulting simpler representation of tongue movement accuracy would aid interpretation of ultrasound images during biofeedback by allowing easy comparison to movement targets. Another source of difficulty is the articulatory information missing from ultrasound images, such as tongue tip shadowed by sublingual air or by bone, as well as possible confusion between parasagittal and midsagittal tongue contours. By using a novel approach of simulating ultrasound wave propagation in tongue shapes segmented from MRI, ultrasound images were simulated from known /r/ tongue shapes. Simulations from 23 speakers indicated that tongue shapes in the middle of the continuum between bunched and retroflex /r/ had the longest portion of anterior tongue not visible in ultrasound images. Simulations of parasagittal and midsagittal images from 10 speakers su (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: T. Douglas Mast Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Steven M. Lulich Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jing Tang Ph.D. (Committee Member); Suzanne Boyce Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Biomedical Engineering

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1969, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1960, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1971, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1960, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1968, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1964, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1963, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1967, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2024, Engineering and Applied Science: Biomedical Engineering

The use of ultrasound in speech therapy provides real-time visual feedback of tongue movement during speech. Ultrasound is a therapeutic tool for treating sounds with complex articulatory patterns and diverse populations, including individuals with speech sound disorders, hearing impairments, childhood apraxia of speech, and speech errors following a stroke. The benefits of ultrasound biofeedback therapy (UBT) for remediating speech deficits could be enhanced by integrating UBT into a real-time, gamified interface that provides real-time articulatory feedback and promotes an external focus of attention, reducing the complex cognitive demands required for standard UBT. Previous studies have shown that accuracy of American English rhotic /r/ can be predicted by a single parameter, d, the difference between tongue dorsum and blade displacements measured by ultrasound imaging during speech production. This parameter has classified speech productions of rhotic syllables as correct versus misarticulated with a classification accuracy up to 85%. However, implementation of this classification approach into real-time gamified UBT, including both measurement timing and establishment of difficulty levels for progressive therapy, would benefit from optimization that is clinically relevant to real-time gamified UBT and uses a larger dataset than previously analyzed. 2,300 productions of 10 distinct rhotic syllables (including prevocalic and postvocalic contexts) from 49 children, with and without speech errors, were analyzed. For each production, ultrasound image sequences were processed by TonguePART software to acquire tongue displacement trajectories, and accuracy was judged by trained listeners using a visual analog scale (VAS). For each syllable, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses using an 8-fold cross validation method were conducted to optimize selection of the image frame approach for classification using the d parameter and determine parameter thresh (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: T. Douglas Mast Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Michael Riley Ph.D. (Committee Member); Kevin Haworth Ph.D. (Committee Member); Suzanne Boyce Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Biomedical Research

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2024, Communication Disorders

Aphasia groups are a popular and effective rehabilitation approach to improve people with aphasias' (PWA) communication and psychosocial health. While current evidence supports the efficacy of aphasia groups, we have minimal insight on the factors that lead to the measured benefits. Recent research exploring the proceedings of aphasia groups and the features that lead to success have produced useful insights; however, they have reflected the perspectives of researchers rather than those who are directly involved in aphasia groups. In the current project we centered the experiences and perspectives of community members by interviewing 5 people with severe aphasia who have attended an aphasia group and 13 experienced facilitators. For participants with severe aphasia, we focused on their ideas regarding how aphasia groups should function with a specific focus on aspects that relate to meeting their needs given the severity of their aphasia. We also focused on facilitators' insights on the ideal aphasia group environment, ideal resources, and contributions of facilitators and group members to interaction during groups. We analyzed participant's insights using qualitative content analysis. We presented these findings across three papers, each with a set of primary categories, tertiary categories, and subcategories. Facilitators described ways to create a comfortable and supportive space for communication and group participation with tools and materials that address the varied group member needs. Facilitators' ideas regarding the materials and tools were largely tied into their insights on interaction in aphasia groups where they described how they and members with aphasia worked to prevent or address communication challenges in the group that arose as a result of aphasia. Insights from the participants with severe aphasia captured the importance of the group makeup, the materials and tools for supporting communication, as well as collaborative and supportive featu (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Brent Archer Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Megan Rancier Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jason Whitfield Ph.D. (Committee Member); Siva Santhanam Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Speech Therapy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Speech and Hearing Science

Preterm infants are at increased risk for long-term neurodevelopmental sequelae affecting all areas of development. Despite ongoing advances in medical care resulting in infants surviving from increasingly younger gestational ages at birth, the neurodevelopmental implications of extreme prematurity and its requisite NICU stay are not yet fully understood. Furthermore, preterm infants are at increased risk for neural insults, further complicating their developmental progression. Parental involvement in the NICU is a known contributor to improved outcomes; however, barriers to parental presence and involvement often reduce parents' ability to contribute to their infant's care. One potential way for parents to contribute to their infant's care, even if they cannot be present at bedside, is through parent voice recordings, and, particularly, through infant-directed language. However, very little is known about the acoustic properties of infant-directed language to preterm infants, namely infant-directed speech and singing, or how these infants respond to infant-directed auditory stimuli. This dissertation consists of 7 chapters examining infant-directed speech and singing with preterm infants and its potential as an early intervention. The first and second chapters provide a background on challenges associated with preterm birth and current approaches to care in the NICU. Chapter 3 provides the theoretical and neuroscientific basis for the use of infant-directed speech and singing as neurodevelopmental support for preterm infants in the NICU. Chapters 4-6 outline three experiments that sought to better understand how preterm birth affects infant-directed language with preterm infants and their mothers. Chapter 4 focuses on the acoustic features of infant-directed speech and singing of mothers of preterm infants recorded during the perinatal period and discusses those features in the context of well-established acoustic parameters of infant-directed language with (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Rachael F. Holt (Advisor); Jennifer P. Lundine (Committee Member); Janet Vuolo (Committee Member); Nathalie L. Maitre (Other) Subjects: Audiology; Music; Speech Therapy

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2023, Speech Pathology and Audiology

Chronic cough impacts 11% of Americans and is one of the most common symptoms reported at outpatient healthcare visits. Previous research has validated cough suppression therapy (CST) as an alternative to medication management, using behavioral principles to modify response to cough and urge-to-cough sensations. This pilot study examined the effectiveness of an eight-week CST protocol for chronic cough including education, psychoeducational counseling, behavioral techniques, and laryngeal hygiene with laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) diet and lifestyle precautions. Key treatment components were separated and systematically introduced over four treatment sessions. This study also examined whether integrating an element of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) called body scan meditation into CST improves patient-reported outcomes of cough and laryngeal sensation as measured by health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Ten participants were randomized into two groups, one receiving the standard CST protocol and the other receiving the identical protocol with integrated mindfulness. Two-week change between data points showed a larger impact of diet, with smaller but compounding impacts of behavioral and breathing strategies. The mindfulness group reported greater mean improvement across multiple cough outcomes. Potential relationships were observed between mindfulness and greater adherence to treatment goals, improvements in cough HRQOL, and increased awareness of laryngeal sensations.

Committee: Renee Gottliebson (Advisor); Susan Brehm (Committee Member); Donna Scarborough (Committee Member); Daniel Croake (Committee Member) Subjects: Speech Therapy

Master of Science (MS), Bowling Green State University, 2023, Communication Disorders

Dysphagia, or difficulty swallowing, is a common consequence of head and neck cancer (HNC) and its associated treatments. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) often play an integral role in the rehabilitation of swallowing difficulties for people with HNC. In clinical speech pathology, it is of utmost importance to base treatment decisions on high-quality evidence. One key tenant of evidence-based practice that is often overlooked is the client perspective. To date, limited research has explored the perspectives of individuals with HNC who have received treatment for dysphagia, especially HNC survivors living in the United States (U.S.). To close this gap, the aim of this project is to establish an increased comprehension of the perspectives of individuals with HNC who have been treated for dysphagia. Specifically, the project explores participant perceptions of which elements of dysphagia care led to positive clinical experiences and which elements created barriers to positive experiences. Six individuals participated in individual, semi-structured interviews to share their experiences with HNC and dysphagia treatment. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, the interview data were coded and analyzed. A set of themes emerged from the recurrent and substantiated ideas within the data. The ability to participate in dysphagia therapy was limited by the physical effects of cancer treatments. Swallowing difficulties caused the participants to experience psychological and emotional reactions. Participants revealed that they had no concerns with accessing treatment financially. However, several individuals were not provided with a speech therapy referral until significant swallowing difficulties developed. Generally, the participants found value in their dysphagia treatments and faced no difficulty accessing speech therapy once they were referred. Future research directions and clinical implications were provided to improve patient-centered care for individuals wit (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Brent Archer Ph.D., CCC-SLP (Advisor); Colleen Fitzgerald Ph.D., CCC-SLP (Committee Member) Subjects: Speech Therapy

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1965, Communication Studies

Committee: Melvin Hyman (Advisor) Subjects: Speech Therapy

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1962, Communication Disorders

Committee: Alice Greiner (Advisor) Subjects: Speech Therapy

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1962, Communication Disorders

Committee: Melvin Hyman (Advisor) Subjects: Speech Therapy

Master of Science (MS), Bowling Green State University, 1956, Communication Disorders

Committee: Melvin Hyman (Advisor) Subjects: Speech Therapy

Master of Science (MS), Bowling Green State University, 1950, Communication Disorders

Committee: Adeline E. McClelland (Advisor) Subjects: Speech Therapy